WELCOME TO the Tuesday blog . Tuesdays mean Steve Collett, focussing mainly on match fishing but also delving into his styles of pleasure fishing and specialist angling.

Steve, who often appears in Angler’s Mail magazine, has a top match angling pedigree with some big match wins including being a former Division One National champion. He is a total all-round angler too, so is sure to reveal some top fishing tips every week.

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Steve Collett – one of the keenest and most proficient all round anglers – is now a weekly blogger here. Follow his match, pleasure and big fish adventures…and learn a few top tips too.

BIG MATCH WEEKEND

AUGUST again has proved to be a very busy period for the match fishing scene, and keeping on top of it all for the Angler’s Mail has been my priority.

I have been up and down the country to see what’s going on and in the meantime, drop a few secrets out of the bag, and let you know what the top anglers in the country have been doing to get an edge…

Dorks?

The consistent Mr Didcote.

Whilst Daiwa Dorking were dominating a certain match up in the north of the country, the River Avon at Evesham was being dominated by another member of the invincible Dorking squad, Mr Ian Didcote.

With over 70 anglers facing a hot and sticky day this looked like it may be a tough one for all concerned, and with bloodworm allowed on these qualifiers for the big day, would they play a part, or would the humble maggot get a showing.

Well the good old maggot seemed to come out on top this time, for Ian anyway who drew peg 57 and started the match of with a few very small roach early doors before committing the rest of the match to eels using a bait dropper and chopped worm, casters and maggots to draw in a few wrigglies, where he finished up with five or six proper snakes and a few perch thrown in to take the honours with a superb 7lb.

That was enough to start putting the jitters in to other teams facing the mighty Daiwa Dorking on the Evesham festival, can they be beaten on any venue ? well with the Division One national coming up very soon on the Bristol Avon we will see.

Joe Roberts

Golden oldies

The Team England Veterans took up the podium this week taking a superb victory in Portugal on the river Mondego.

The team, made up of Joe Roberts, Dickie Carr, Roger Marlow and Terry Lancaster fished a superb match that saw them finish with 22 points, just ahead of a superb Italian side that finished up with 23, well clear of Belgium and France.

Individually Joe Roberts took individual gold, with a perfect score and a superior weight total to come back with more gold than team GB, well done the vets !

The Masters

Adam Wakelin

Elsewhere in match fishing world the Angling Trust Masters took place with 11 teams of six battling it out on the beautiful Glebe Fishery, spread out over seven lakes.

With so many lakes in, it would be interesting to see how the anglers would cope, and as we all know, seven different lakes would mean a mountain of gear, and a pallet full of bait!

Individually Adam Wakelin took the honours with a massive 178lb 8oz from the Foundation Lake and decided to fish the feeder all day. Second spot could not have been closer, and I mean that as both Aaron Morton (Total Fishing) and Dom Lanni (Marukyu Green) caught exactly the same weight of 177lb 8oz. A very very tight match, and the Team title went to Marukyu Red winning with 24 points.

Is match fishing too much of an ageing sport?

Match fishing – a dying art?

One thing I have noticed this week attending these major matches is how ugly we all are!

Only joking, how old the average match angler is, and I don’t know whether or not it’s worrying or it’s just having a cycle, but if you have a look at modern day carping, I would say it is worrying.

What do we offer the youngster these days? It’s definitely not a fashion thing, as if we all stood together in our brightly coloured outfits, we would look like a 80s breakdance troupe! But the carpers have an edge on that with hoodies and vans galore where are they heading?

Also costs. It’s a very expensive game nowadays and even on a good salary a youngster would find a big match a daunting and wallet denting prospect.

And to be honest I don’t know the answer to this one, I do know though that we need to get it sorted and addressed pretty quickly, or the only big money sponsor we will be attracting is Saga holidays and Sanatogen.

My week

I managed to fish a pairs match on my own pool last week, a good little get together for a good pal of mine Andre Portik, or Prev as he is known, for a birthday bash.

And it would be a random pairs match so I didn’t know who I was going to be partnered with. I know who I didn’t want to get lumbered with, I mean partnered with, and that was my old man. And well you guessed it, I drew the old man, and a bad peg to boot, whilst he had a flyer.

Being my own fishery I pretty much knew what tactic to employ and didn’t think that a winning performance could be mustered up, as there was a few good uns on other pegs, notably the other half Sammie Perkins who had drew peg 26 “fraggle rock”. So more than pride was at stake – dinner and gloating rights – and hours of mickey-taking so my “A” game needed to come out, and so did my old man’s.

After 5 hours it seemed like it would be very close. The old man was first to weigh in and put 29 lb odd on the scales so it looked like I was in for a drowning and a drive home full of bragging and “getting done over by a girl” comments as Sammie weighed in 34 lb.

Hers was a superb performance on a tough day made up of a lot of small fish on the long pole. Further round Sammie’s partner for the day had been catching well and put 31 lb on the scales, so it looked as it would be very tight. I had over-worried on this occasion as a steady stream of carp on the method saw me put 51 lb on giving me and the Ol man a winning weight overall – but a very grumpy missus!

TOP TIP – don’t be tight!

I have managed to win a few bob over the years fishing a feeder tight to islands, and I was asked the other week, to give one tip on how I do it.

Well it couldn’t be simpler, don’t be tight! By that I mean when you have cast your method tight to the bank, make sure your line is slack, and I mean slack. This enables your line to sink and doesn’t send out a warning signal to feeding fish.

When you tighten up it’s like putting traffic cones around your hookbait, one brush of a fin, and they will be gone, just slacken off. And don’t worry about bite indication or a bend in the tip, you will know when you get a bite !

Callum Dicks put in a great performance.

This week my award goes to a superb performance by Callum Dicks at this weekend’s Angling Trust Final at up in the North West at Partridge. Although not winning the match nor a section, he managed a solid performance that helped secure yet another victory for Daiwa Dorking, and next week I shall ask him how he did it.

Ian Chapman’s full report on this match and exclusive pictures will appear in the magazine, where you will find an absolute mountain of local match fishing results – from small sweeps to proper big ‘uns – every single week.

My non sponsored angler award goes to Graham Rigby from Aldridge who had a cracking days sport at Cob House fishery drawing peg 1 on the Oak and amassed a mammoth 218 lb on paste fishing close in. Well done Graham.

Hope you have had your fix of match fishing and don’t forget to pop back and have a look next week – tight lines and may your drawing arm be with you!